


Infectious

by Raeliyah



Series: And the Sun Burned In Them [4]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Solar Exalted, sick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raeliyah/pseuds/Raeliyah
Summary: Quinn Lanus is very, very smart. Unfortunately, he's not too bright.Twilight Caste engineering a new disease flubs it and gets himself sick. And then everyone he knows and a quite a few he doesn't. They're less than pleased. A selection of drabbles about how my Solar kids react to illness.





	1. Quinn

Qismet smiled so seldomly that the expression seemed too wide for his narrow face, merry crinkles appearing beside his shadowed eyes. “You have a cold?”

“Yed. I hab a cold.” Quinn was quietly furious, huddled beneath his blanket on a couch in the expansive common room of their First Age warship. He sniffed, wiped his nose on a square of linen, and went back to huddling. 

“Oh, gods, this is too good. What happened to Quinn Master of All Life?” Qismet took three steps back and collapsed into another chair before the laughter threatening to take out his knees dumped him on his ass. “Couldn’t you engineer yourself to *not* get sick?”

“I did. No mordul disease cud touch me,” Quinn replied thickly. His spider automata handed him a mug of something faintly steaming and he gulped some of it down, making a face. “Bud dis infed-shun is also engineered.”

“Wait, you made something so bad it got *you* sick?” Qismet lifted his head and stared at the Twilight, tensing up. “Should I be worried?”

“On-dee ib you keep boddering me.” Quinn arched a dark eyebrow at his Circlemate from beneath his blanket hood. “Den I might infed you on principle.” He hawked, looking like an offended cat with a hairball, spat into the square of linen. “Blegh. Dis is on-dee a prodotype. It shuddn’t be too infedshush. Don leb the morduls near, doe.” 

“Ah hahaha. Sure, Quinn. You want me to bring you anything?” Qismet scrubbed at his face with the heel of one hand, distorting the still huge smile across his face. 

“My books, plead. And wribing maderials.”


	2. Qismet

“Hah! Not so funny when *you’re* sick, is it?” 

“Fuck off, Quinn.” The grumpy spat-out phrase broke in the middle, starting faint and hoarse to squeakily high and strained. “Fuck right off.” 

“But I have such good news!” Quinn turned his head sideways, peering up at Qismet beneath his own blanket cowl. The man’s features were even darker and broodier than usual, and definitely not enhanced by the feverish look in his eyes. “Apparently I miscalculated the virulency and inversed its infective matrix, which is so basic I’m not even sure how I missed it but the essence flows on microgods are nearly impossible to see with the crude equipment on the  _ Dawn _ and--”

“That’s not news.”

“Oh, right, well. Turns out, this strain of rhinovirus is *only* infectious to active essence users of a particular magnitude so --”

“So I can take care of you, big baby, without getting sick myself.” Samira interjected, poking her head through the doorway of Qismet’s cabin. She had a mug of honeyed tea in one hand - stuffed nose or not, Qismet’s charms could let him smell it from here. He reached a hand out for it peremptorily. With the other, he picks up one of the knives from his kit on the desk and weighs it measuredly. 

“Just because I have no voice, Quinn,” another hoarse, broken squeak, “does not mean my aim is any less perfect.”

“I’ll leave you to your recovery, then. Perhaps I can retrofit the aft ballast hold to contain a genesing recombinant sphere--”

“No getting anybody else sick!”

“What was that, squeaky?”

The knife thunked into the doorpost an inch from Quinn’s rapidly retreating head. 


	3. Pyrrhus

“Du mean, your friend purbodely engineered a code jud for exalts?” Pyrrhus cannot remember the last time he was actually sick. Twenty or thirty years ago, now, at least - definitely not since his Second Breath. He’s standing, leaning heavily on a door, while the carrier of this... infection... shrugs helplessly. 

“Sorry. It’s been awhile, I didn’t think it was still active. But I definitely recognize the symptoms.” This Night Caste from the western oceans grinned widely. Pyrrhus recognized the looseness of the expression as one from one whom trauma is a recent recovery. He might sport something similar. “At least you haven’t gotten the squeaky voice yet.”

“De... de squeaby voib.” Pyrrhus pinched the bridge of his nose. The throbbing of a stuffed head eased briefly. “How lob?”

“Couple weeks, depending.”

“Sund in heaben.” His legs trembled. Never completely whole after Mistress, the sick was sucking even more energy. He walked, just to move, found a chair and sank into it. “And did your friend nod engineer a cure?” 

“He did, but trust me it’s better to just wait it through. I’ll contact him and have him send it over but... last resort.” Qismet’s expression turned blank then, smooth and hard like polished stone. “I’ll cover your gap in the meantime, you’ll want to rest. It’s my fault. Tell me what you need done.”

“Dank you. Id’s bery considerate ob you.” Pyrrhus crossed his arms and tucked his cold fingers beneath them. “Id’s been preddy quiet ob late, truly. Dere are rumors, doe, ob a god taking adbantage ob my... new authoriby. Not allowed. I was about to track dem down when...” He freed a hand and gestured at Qismet. 

“I’ll find him, Zenith,” Qismet said.

“Oh, and ib you meed a man named Gaelen... do me a fabor and kill him, pleab.”


	4. Caleb & Fiera

It’s not that Fiera is quiet which worries him, Caleb thinks, packing up the camp with exactly zero energy to spare. Fiera was always quieter than him, but it’s the peculiar weepy quality of her quietness that has him fair rattled. Even Luksa is concerned. The horse-sized saber toothed is curled against her rider’s back, her massive muzzle tucked under Fiera’s hand. 

“Alrigh’, darlin’, it’s time t’go,” he says, kneeling beside her. “Beren’s already gone ahead to get it all ready fer us.”

It might be a measure of her illness but she doesn’t even blink at the endearment she claimed to hate. 

“Caleb, what if the scourge returns?” Her voice is a strained whisper, cracking at the edges into the high notes.  She doesn’t resist as he slung  an arm under her and got her to her feet. A nudge to the ribs gets Luksa up as well.  Fiera's eyes are red and feverish and he sees how close she is to crying. “I cannot fight like this. I can’t--” she trailed off into her native dialect and lost Caleb.

“Naw, don’t you worry none. I’ll take care of ya.” He patted his sidearm with his free hand. “I gotcha, I gotcha. Jest you sleep, dove.”

He and Beren had rigged up a kind of hammock out of a spare bedroll before the Lunar had gone, and now he picked up Fiera - she was so light without the plate armor - and bundled her into it. It lay along Luksa’s side like peculiar saddlebags. Caleb tucked her in with a blanket - Southern nights get cold - and a water flask. “Jest sleep, dove.” 

“How are not you sick, Caleb?” 

“Oh, I am, darlin’, but I’ve got years of hangovers as practice.” Caleb gave her a crooked smile and returned the toothpick he’d been chewing between his teeth. He won’t let her see how dog-tired he is, or how the breath catches in his throat on fingers of sticky phlegm. He patted Luksa and took up her reins, holding them loosely as he heaved himself onto his own mount’s saddle. “C’mon, let’s get goin’.”


End file.
